Lost in a jungle, surrounded by lava and guided to safety by a drone flying overhead.
It’s not a futuristic high-tech movie, but the scene in Leilani Estates Sunday after a resident got “trapped at their residence” on Luana Street. he Department of Interior’s Kilauea response team was on a mission to map the Lower East Rift Zone when scientists using an unmanned aircraft system, or drone, spotted a resident as lava from Kilauea Volcano continued to devour the rural subdivision in lower Puna.
The resident was able to “follow the drone to safety,” according to the USGS in a press release Wednesday.
Researchers had been using drones to monitor a flow headed toward Highway 132 and identified a new outbreak of pahoehoe lava rapidly moving north into a residential area down Luana Street at around 7 p.m.